Page 48 of Their Master

He got Sandrine, didn’t he? If you are beginning to like him too much—admire him or feel gratitude toward him, then remember your sister.

Moira’s smile slid away.

“Is aught amiss?” Luke asked.

She shook her head and forced another smile. “No. Everything is fine.”

Luke led her through a connecting door into a room that was just as large as the one they’d just left.

Rather than white and gray marble, the floors were wood stained ebony and buffed to a shine. Expensive looking rugs with intricate patterns woven with dozens of shades of gray, black, and white were scattered around the room.

A fire roared in the massive fireplace, whose marble surround was taller than Moira, and the bed was a monstrous four-poster, the thick posts easily nine or ten inches in diameter, its canopy and curtains made of a creamy gauze.

Moira couldn’t help feeling a bit overwhelmed, not only from the luxury around her, but at how impeccably neat and clean everything was.

“Everything is very, er—”

“Perfect?”

Moira nodded.

He hesitated, then said, “Mr. Smith is a pleasure to serve, but he is particular about some things.”

Moira thought back to the extensive contract she’d signed. Yes,particularwas a good word to describe him.

“His chambers and yours will be thoroughly cleaned every day—from top to bottom, including fresh bedding. He bathes in the morning, evening, and always after he uses his private gymnasium.” He cleared his throat. “You will be expected to bathe in the morning and evening as well. You might say he is obsessed with cleanliness.”

It sounded more like a mania, but Luke’s meaning was clear: Moira had better develop a similar mania.

What had happened to Smith to make him this way? Or perhaps it was just a byproduct of being so wealthy that he could afford to indulge his every whim.

Whatever his reasons, having multiple baths a day, changing clothes frequently, and sleeping in fresh sheets every night wasn’t exactly a hardship.

“He despises clutter or mess,” Luke continued. “How the servants keep our quarters is our own affair, but he is particular about the way we present ourselves in public. He provides us all with multiple sets of outer garments and underclothes—unheard of generosity when it comes to clothing one’s servants—and he also expects us to take baths at least weekly. He has a most, er, acute sense of smell.”

“Yes, he mentioned that.” He didn’t care for perfumes—unless he’d selected them—nor strong-smelling lotions or powders.

Luke gestured to the unopened door on the east wall of the big room. “His chambers are through there.”

Moira was a bit startled; always in the past her protectors had maintained a certain reserve with her—mainly to enforce the differences in their statuses, she’d always suspected. Never had any of them lived in an adjacent room.

Luke opened the door for her.

Moira hesitated. “I’d hate to intrude.”

“The master instructed me to show you all of the house.” His tone made it clear that he had no intention of doing anything other than exactly what Smith had instructed.

She stepped through the doorway into a room that was almost a mirror image of hers when it came to color and furnishings. There was one detail that was different: the enormous painting above the bed.

Moira’s lips parted as she stared at it, not quite sure what to say.

It was Smith, reclining on a chaise, one arm draped around a gorgeous naked young man. Anerectman, with a big silver ring in the crown of his prick.

Never had she seen such a blatantly sexual painting of two men together. If the portrait was ever made public, Smith could go to jail for violating indecency laws. Or perhaps he was so rich that he didn’t need to worry.

It was clear, from Smith’s bare arm, shoulder, and a bit of his knee, that he was also naked. He wore an expression that was more relaxed than she’d ever seen, his fascinating, mobile mouth pulled up on one side in a barely-there smile, his fingers brushing against the other man’s erect nipple.

“It is striking,” she said when it became apparent Luke was waiting for a response.

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